At some point during the past couple of years, I became obsessed with serums. I’ve since learned this makes me a very basic bitch because as the world grappled with the utter lack of control thrust upon us by covid, skincare sales exploded.
Thousands of women like me decided that we may not be able to leave our houses, see our loved ones or send our kids to school but by god, we would control the shit out of our skin.
Or at least try to.
Enter serums.
Despite not really understanding what a serum is or does, prior to 2020, I embraced the serum with my whole mind and my whole heart once the pandemic hit. All the serums. All at once.
Hell, there wasn’t much else to do during those lockdowns other than download an app called House Party which I would use once and never again.
For many of us, skincare became an obsession during that time, probably because wearing (let alone buying) makeup seemed ridiculous when ‘going to work’ or ‘seeing friends’ no longer involved leaving your lounge room.
Simply put, a serum is the most concentrated form of skincare. It’s the hardcore product in your skincare routine if you do indeed have a routine and if you don’t, it’s unlikely you’ll be reading this, so whatever.
Being someone who likes to get the most bang for my skincare buck (and please let us never speak of the bucks I banged on skincare during the pandemic because my soul is ashamed), serums obviously appeal to me because they don’t mess about.
You have your moisturisers and your cleansers to smell nice and take things off and seal things in. But serums? Those bad boys be active.
And since a high level of activity is what I want most from the small yet expensive bottles of stuff I rub into my face, it’s no wonder I’m a serum fan.
Image: Mia Freedman.
Here’s what I learned quickly: too many serums will make your face fall off.
And before it does, it will hate you. Face skin does not respond well to the overuse of serums which was disappointing to me because I’ve always believed that if one of something is good, 20 of something is fantastic.
Not so with serums.
Remember the active ingredient part? It turns out that putting too many active ingredients on your face is a terrible idea. The result is that it will become red and painful when you try to put anything on it. Even makeup. Even water. Even air.